


in accordance with the principles of justice

by helhan (rosewithoutathorn)



Series: Convention on the Rights and Responsibilities of Enhanced Individuals [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Author is Bitter, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, I promise, I stand by the theory that if Steve had actually read the damn thing it might have worked out, Legal Drama, Political Drama, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pro-Accords, Sokovia Accords, Sort Of, Thunderbolt Ross does not run the UN, actions have consequences, gets way more chill as we go, like has anyone in the MCU actually heard of the UDHR
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-03-18 01:56:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13671876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewithoutathorn/pseuds/helhan
Summary: The Sokovia Accords weren't born out of the wreckage of Novi Grad.





	1. definitions (the Preamble)

**Author's Note:**

> Gearing up for Infinity War, I experienced a majorly delayed wave of bitterness about CA:CW. I'm a History and IR student and politics nerd, so maybe it's the change in the political climate since May 2016, combined with me watching the film for the first time since seeing it in the cinema. (Okay, so maybe not _delayed_ bitterness so much as _in denial about_ how bitter I am.)
> 
>  
> 
> tl;dr, I have no idea where this came from, or where it's going, I'm easily distracted and I have poor impulse control. So... here. 
> 
>  
> 
> HEADS UP:  
> MCU-canon characters are only referred to, or implied, in this chapter. The main character in the preamble *is* the Accords - which sounds weird as hell but hopefully will make sense? The style of this chapter is experimental for me, so feedback would be appreciated!!

 

_Convention on the Rights and Responsibilities of Enhanced Individuals_

_"_ _the Sokovia Accords"_  

 

_Preamble_

 

_The States Parties to the present Convention,_

_Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…_

 

 

 

The Sokovia Accords weren’t born out of the wreckage of Novi Grad. They weren’t the brain-child of the Sokovian politicians clamoring for reparations, weren’t the justice promised to the grieving families of Ultron’s victims. 

Of course they weren’t.

The seeds of the idea that led to the Accords had been planted before Ultron, before the Manhattan Incident, before Iron Man, even -- way back in 1945, in fact, with the formation of the United Nations in the wake of the Second World War and the decimation of Hydra. 

Hydra’s split from the Nazi Party as the tides changed had surprised exactly no-one. Their defeat -- a fluke, a legend-worthy battle that could have ended _so differently_ \-- was something else entirely. Who could have planned for that? What contingencies were there in place to stop Johann Schmidt, or any despot like him, armed with super-strength, a glowing alien artifact and a plane full of bombs?

 

 

 

_…Acknowledging that, in accordance with the proclamations made in the Charter, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in the International Covenants on Human Rights, all human beings are born free and equal, and are entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration, without distinction of any kind…_

 

 

 

The war was over suddenly, leaving behind it a world divided between two new economic powers, a Europe torn to shreds, a defunct League of Nations, nuclear weapons, and super soldiers. _Super soldiers!_

The UN was formed to prevent another world war, but also to mitigate the fallout from the last one. People often forget that. It has its glitches, has its flaws; but it works.

 

 

 

_...Bearing in mind that as the human family has progressed and expanded, there has been an exponential increase in appearance of genetically enhanced humans, and of sapient non-human persons of alien-, artificial-, or other- heritage, who are 'endowed with reason and conscience' and have acted towards humankind 'with a spirit of brotherhood', as the United Nations encourages humans to do…_

 

 

 

If the seeds were sown in 1945, then the Cold War was the dormant period, the wait-with-baited-breath-through-the-winter-and-hope-to-God-that-spring-will-come moment. Tony Stark’s confession was the germination, and Manhattan was when the seedlings tentatively pushed their way through the topsoil to sunlight. 

Aliens existed. 

Certain people knew that already, of course, but for the first time _irrefutable proof_ was laid out before the world.

Aliens. In New York. Aliens and gods and portals in the sky. Resurrected propaganda symbols running around draped in flags, and a real-life New World Order prepared to bypass international law and nuke _eleven million civilians_ for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

 

 

_...Welcoming the good intentions of the vast majority of these individuals, including but not limited to the international group known as 'The Avengers', persons serving voluntarily in their respective armed forces, in intelligence agencies, or local law enforcement..._

 

 

 

The flames of _that_ fire were still smoldering when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. 

For a time, it was… acceptable. The international community were happy to let the Avengers in, happy to have the responsibility of the clean-up delegated and out of their hands. After all, many were of the opinion that it was _their_ mess. Like with Iron Man and the caches of illegally-dealt Stark weapons, the Avengers were mopping up after themselves. 

But even before the civilian death toll began to climb, there were questions. Rumours. Quiet conversations about when, exactly, the United States was going to stop pretending that it had no influence over the Avengers, no authority, when all the members bar the alien demigod were US citizens and they were led by the walking talking epitome of American patriotism. 

The tentative little shoots started to sprout leaves.

 

 

 

_...Emphasising that the United Nations mission, as laid out in Article 1 of the Charter, is to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples, to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character, and to promote and encourage respect for fundamental freedoms for all..._

 

 

 

Ashlin Murphy grew up in New York. She was fifteen months old when the WTC was bombed in '93 -- doesn’t remember it firsthand, but her Mom was a DSS agent, so she knows -- and was nearly ten when the Towers came down on 9/11. She remembers _that_. 

Remembers the duel of Harlem, convinced she could feel the ground shake from across the city in Brooklyn. 

Remembers watching from a south-facing window out of the Lehman Social Sciences Library of Columbia University, as a portal opened over southern Manhattan and aliens rained down: watching Iron Man fly into it with a nuclear bomb meant to kill her, because someone, some _where_ , blank faced and unnaccountable in a shadowy room had decided she wasn’t worth saving. 

She remembers the news coverage from the days afterwards. Watching, as the dust settled and the rubble was cleared, as the body count crept up. 

 

 

 

_...Highlighting that the lack of oversight, jurisdiction and accountability of 'The Avengers' and any other enhanced individual operating outside of law enforcement or a military structure, presents a contradiction in terms to the goals of the United Nations..._

 

 

 

Ash is nearly done with her first semester of law school when more aliens show up in London. She glimpses the faces of terrified students through the windows when she watches the Greenwich footage, and remembers New York. 

The Stark Relief Foundation steps in to help with repairs. Thor, too, sticks around, and everything seems right as rain again. Ashlin does some research on Stark Relief. Works hard enough that when internship application time comes around she’s done enough to make it onto one of their programmes. 

She catches those first little glimpses of the green leaves that will become the Sokovia Accords - that will become the Convention on the Rights and Responsibilities of Enhanced Individuals - during the HYDRA offensive, because as a Stark Relief legal grunt she’s meant to have her finger on the pulse of public opinion at all times. 

Ultron is… the fertilizer that leads to the growth spurt. Within days the calls for accountability have made it off the political blogs, out of the debating chambers, and onto the mainstream news. Onto social media.

Into the public consciousness. 

There’s a constant sense of frustration in the legal offices at Stark Relief. Lots of back-and-forth-ing, between the UN and the Avengers, with SR in the middle for a reason Ash isn't qualified enough to know but has overheard enough to guess is because they’re cleaning up after unsanctioned missions, and therefore have channels of communication open already. 

When Lagos happens, blooming season is still months away. The harvest is barely a speck on the horizon. The consulting stage is far from over, and Ash is somewhere on her way to _doing something._ She's a second-year grunt, now, her last year of law school and halfway to a paid position at the Foundation. She took her eye off the ball. They're all preoccupied, and utterly unprepared for the heatwave to come. 

It hits anyway, sends the Accords into early bloom; the flowers bright red, garish and blinding enough that everyone's momentarily stunned. They have to work through it, though, have to push through the heat, because while the spectres of the lives lost in Lagos loom over them, harvest time creeps ever closer.

All they can do, by the time the Vienna Conference rolls around, is hope that the fruit borne is worth the effort. 

 

 

 

_Determining therefore that there is a need for a systematic, international co-operative effort to regulate the activities of enhanced individuals currently acting without jurisdiction, to acknowledge enhanced agents of national or international bodies and their abilities, and to reaffirm the rights and freedoms of-, and protections extended to-, enhanced individuals, be they human, alien, artificial intelligence or otherwise,_

_Have agreed as follows;_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, yeah.
> 
> Every ratified UN Treaty, as well as providing clearly worded and sectioned chapters, has a preamble that lays out the circumstances and assumptions upon which that treaty is based, usually with reference to other UN guidelines. I started drafting one as a thought experiment after bingeing on Team Iron Man fic for the last month (two words: still bitter) and then this happened.  
> It's perhaps extrapolation on my part to assume that the Accords will deal with Enhanced rights as well as responsibilities, but considering that the first three UN treaties that spring to my mind are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (founding the modern UNICEF mission*) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, it falls in with my line of thinking that the UN's priority when dealing with Enhanced individuals is to:
> 
> 1) prevent them from being co-opted, drafted, forced etc into any military or para-military organisation which will use them arbitrarily and without supervision or accountability, upsetting the international status quo and endangering everything the UN has spent the last seventy years working for  
> 2) reaffirm their status as 'human' where possible, and otherwise (in the case of AI, aliens etc) to ensure they're provided for under international law, if not the UDHR itself, to assist with the action of (1), if not because... uh... they're still people.
> 
> Enhanced individuals, depending on your perspective and motivations, can be one of two things; a weapon, or a person. Weapons have no autonomy; persons do. The first line of the preamble in the UN Charter begins _'we the people of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war'_. The second line is _'to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small'_.  
>  It stands to reason then that the UN's first priority would be to prevent the classification of Enhanced individuals as merely weapons, and thus avoid any discriminatory practices against (or inversely, the conscription of) enhanced people at a military, covert, or governmental level.
> 
> Basically, to keep the political rambling to a minimum, I believe that even if it wouldn't have been in the first paragraph as I've chosen to place it there is no way any UN treaty concerning anything like genetic enhancement on the scale it appears in the MCU wouldn't reaffirm an enhanced human's rights under international law. (aka, Steve, read the damn document).
> 
> Of course, the UN isn't perfect. It's not a paragon of virtue by a long shot, and Steve was right to be concerned about agendas - skepticism of any government is healthy, I will scream this on a soapbox any day - but with an organisation as large as the UN, it's inevitable that the majority of agendas will neutralize each other.
> 
> I have no idea what my plan is for this, there's definitely more... somewhere... but I'm super busy at the moment. Ideally I'd like to expand it, deal with more of the behind-the-scenes stuff like the aftermath of the HYDRA file dump, or the Manhattan Incident (a la the Netflix series, or even Homecoming). Ash Murphy is a bastardised version of an OC that I wanted to see deal with the Accords, so I'll keep going with it and see where I get.  
> Like I said at the beginning, the main character here is the Accords, as an entity.
> 
> *EDIT: I changed a misleading sentence where I (falsely) claimed that the UNCRC founded UNICEF. While the UNCRC is considered UNICEF's mission statement, the actual organisation predates the Convention by a good thirty-something years. Sorry! Thank you, KahunaBurger!


	2. a new colossus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING*  
> for offensive terms for both Irish and Italian Americans, used by a character to refer to himself.

 

**Sunday, May 8th 2016**

**Five days since Lagos**

 

\--  
 

**_Article 1_ **

  1. _A Biologically Enhanced Human is defined as someone born with a wholly ‘baseline’ human genetic structure (hereafter 'Baseline Humans'), who undergoes any procedure to induce irreversible change to their anatomy that results in abilities beyond the capability of a Baseline Human_
  2. _A Genetically Enhanced Human is defined as someone born with any genetic mutation that gives them abilities beyond the capability of a Baseline Human, that is not a chromosomal mutation_
  3. _A Technologically Advanced Human is defined as someone who uses artificial constructs, such as prostheses, highly specialised suits of armor, or other technological means to give them abilities beyond the capability of a Baseline Human_
  4. _For the purposes of the present Convention, where applicable the term ‘Enhanced Human’ may be used to describe the collective listed above_



 

\--

 

“-the Joint Counter Terrorism scheme has been in the pipeline for a while now, but it’s certainly no coincidence that its inaugural meeting has been pushed forward. While none of the parties involved in the Lagos Catastrophe are directly affiliated with NATO, the debate about the ability of governments to coordinate effectively with the Avengers has been reopened, and the establishment of the Joint Counter Terrorism Centre is NATO attempting to get their foot in the door of that debate. It’s almost certainly a US-driven-”

It’s five days since Lagos, and the world is scrambling.

Ash is spending her Sunday working out of a little cafe behind LIU. During the week you can’t move for students, but she makes sure to arrive early, before the hangover-brunch rush kicks in, and parks herself in the back corner. The grating hum of the coffee machine, overset by inoffensive, lyricless blues, is oddly comforting.

She keeps one earbud in, half her attention on a CNCB News stream, and uses the other half to scour the internet. It’s second nature to her now, the technique forged during her Bachelor’s, honed on the whetstone of the Socratic Method, and hilted, _perfected,_ during her time at Stark Relief. Laptop pushed to the back, notebook spread half over the keys, phone leaning against the screen open on her twitter feed. Coffee in one hand, pen in the other.

She’s been preparing her whole twenty-five years of life for this. Or, something like it.

Tony Stark had signed the Accords forty-eight hours after Lagos. It was very loud, very public… very _him_ , complete with the presidential pose and red-gold pen glinting for the cameras. He didn’t smile, though, there was no trademark _Tony Fucking Stark_ smirk - he didn’t look like he’d slept in two days, and considering the sheer amount of work that had gone into arranging the damn thing, he probably hadn’t. He’d announced the detachment of Stark Relief volunteers leaving immediately for Nigeria; stated in that effortless, blasé way of his SR’s intention to _“coordinate with and act under the advisement of UN agencies already on the scene”_  like it was nothing, like he hadn’t _personally_ sat up all night in a boardroom reviewing contracts.

Ash wasn’t supposed to know that, but she’d made friends with the PA to the Executive Director of Policy when they’d shared a breakdown in the bathroom on Friday morning.

 _Scrambling_ was perhaps an understatement.

After all, who the _fuck_ puts out a policy initiative on a Sunday? To all intents and purposes, it had been ‘leaked’, but Ash knows better. The official announcement is tomorrow morning - no word yet, but the inaugural meeting will probably be midweek, complete with a ribbon-cutting at the front door. The NATO facility in Berlin was supposed to be a Policy and Analytics centre, or something like that. Ash supposes that when one squints, it’s not _technically_ a lie. Still, the fact of the matter remains: twenty-six countries are donating ten of their best counter-intelligence operatives, plus handlers, plus analysts, to an allied military oversight team. In Germany. Run by an American. Former-CIA, former-Air-Force, current brass.

The Russians are going to have a fit.

It wouldn’t be any of her business, except that now, apparently, it is. The afternoon after Dr. Stark’s announcement had seen emergency department meetings called across SR. Every team was split in half, from Operations to HR all the way up to the Board. Not officially, but formally enough to mean different offices and different coffee machines and extracontractual non-disclosure agreements.

The lucky half takes on the existing SR workload. The other half - Ash’s half - is set aside to deal with the UN, and essentially do all the hard manual labour for the (incompetent) Avengers Initiative legal department. Somehow, despite the lightening of her workload, she’s just as busy as she’s ever been.

She spent the remainder of the working week poring over the Accords on behalf of the Avengers Initiative, note-taking much like she is now, scribbling down any red flags in fluorescent pen and block-caps, highlighting for good measure. There are… a few. The Security Council is a _big_ one. And so, _naturally_ , three-fifths of the permanent contingent to the aforementioned Council had to go and piss off the other two, right in the middle of the signatory stage of what could be the single biggest piece of international legislation of the modern era.

Naturally.

 

\--

 

**_Article 2_ **

_A Non Human Sapient Being is hereby defined as an individual with non-human chromosomal makeup (of both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial origin), or of artificial (non-biological) construction; 'endowed with reason and conscience', which is assessed to be of- or beyond- the level of a Baseline Human_

 

\--

 

Harry Givens drops his cases in the bedroom of his new Berlin apartment, and wonders how the hell he’s gotten himself here. He still considers himself a cop, probably always will for all he’s been out of uniform nearly twenty years, and the JCTTF is a hell of a long way from the 27th Precinct.

He'd never been ambitious. He was always more of a follower, a drifter. Went where he was told to go, did what he was told to do. Got his diploma, enlisted like his Pa had before him. Shipped out to Germany, which his Ma had thought was his big chance, but being the green boy he was he jumped at the first chance to come home. Home being East Harlem, and his nonna’s cramped little apartment on E116th. He joined the NYPD, because that’s what his CO had suggested when he’d heard Harry was thinking about going home. Made Detective, got married, transferred to SID, got divorced. Harry never would have said that seventeen year old him would have made a good detective. He hadn’t been a bright kid. But this stuff - the analysis, the dissection, fitting all the little pieces together - made sense to him.

He was good.

S.H.I.E.L.D. picked him up in ‘02. He’d been on the Major Case Squad for six years at that point, wrapped up in work because he didn’t want to think about his wreck of a marriage. No kids, thank God, to get caught in the middle of it all. No house, either, because New York house prices before the Incident were fucking ridiculous, and he’d been paying too much rent to save. So when he was transferred to D.C. - apartment included - he upped and went, no qualms, no questions. Straight in as head of a SIT squad, which, despite being a Special _Investigations_ Team, lived the hell up to its name; transferred to Analytics once he’d gotten too used to parking his ass behind a desk to be of any use in the field, and then, after the Incident, was moved upstairs to the NYPD Liaison Office.

Harry remembers the Hydra uprising with maddening clarity. (Bastard sons of bitches.) He’d seen too much gun crime to ever be a proponent of free-for-all gun rights, but great God above was he glad for his concealed carry permit that day. Saved his own life, and the poor secretary from the CIA Liaison Office. That went a long way to vouching him as HYDRA-free, when the dust settled and he realised he was going to need a new job.

CIA, of course.

And then… well, then the Sokovia disaster, and then Lagos, and now… this. The low-key, CIA-approved, newly-refurbished apartment in Pankow, a twenty-three minute drive from the barely-built JCTC headquarters in the shadow of the famous Reichstag dome. Not bad, he thinks satisfactorily, for an unambitious bog-trotting Guido from Harlem.

“Agent Givens?”

He focuses on the HR lackey in the doorway. Poor kid - Johann, which is second only to Hans or Rudolf as the most cliche German name Harry can think of - has clearly drawn the short straw, babysitting the Yank while his colleagues got their teeth into the hands-on stuff at the Centre. Or, as hands-on as HR could get, anyway.

“I’m sorry we can’t give you more time to settle in, but we need you at the Centre, Sir,” Johann is saying, in the barely-accented English that would never fail to impress Harry. His own German is passable, but his accent unashamedly terrible, and his Italian is only slightly better. This kid probably speaks flawless French, as well as English and his native German. And he’d gone into HR. What a waste.

They’re off after a change of shirt and shoes - he barely has time for a cursory glance around the rest of the place before Johann is hustling him out the door. Harry lets himself have a good look out of the darkened windows as the car chauffeurs them both across the city. Johann had kept up a general commentary on Berlin during the ride from the airport, but now he details the neighbourhoods and landmarks as they pass them driving west. Give it a week or so and he’ll be driving himself, but with everything so up in the air the move happened quicker than the paperwork.

“-and there, between the buildings, you can see it again now, is the Fernsehturm. You see the spire?”

He couldn’t miss it.

Still, it’s impressive: ugly, sharp and imposing, dominating the skyline. Ironic, he thinks, that such a pointed symbol of Communist power should not only outlive the Soviets, but outlive them as a highly commodified tourist attraction.

Then they cross the Spree, and the glassy face of modern governance rises before them. The Centre reminds Harry a lot of DC, of the Triskelion before it quite literally fell to pieces in front of him. Johann is out of the car and holding his door open for him before Harry realises they’ve pulled up, temporarily blindsided as he still sometimes is by the sheer absurdity of SHIELD’s collapse.

Harry’s not entirely sure why he was selected to run Analytics for an anti-terrorism task force when most of his experience in Analytics came from an organisation solely remembered for being the public front of the most infamous terrorist organisation in history. It seems a bit too high-risk for an ‘it-takes-one-to-know-one’ mentality. But then, Harry’s proved his worth, he has nothing to hide… and if the CIA hasn’t bugged his nice new apartment he’ll eat his nonna’s Sunday cloche.

Johann walks him through security and up to the Analytics department. “...you will be working directly with the other Department heads and the Task Force Commanders - one is also CIA… a Commander Ross?”

“Everett Ross?” asks Harry, sharply. He’d never wondered before about Agent Ross’ last name - after all, it’s common enough - but with everything up in the air, and from what he knows about _Thunderbolt_ Ross… Well, if he were Secretary of State, he’d want a plant in the JCTC, too.

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Only by reputation.” But it was too obvious - it had to be. Still, he’d keep an eye out.

(As would the rest of his NATO allies, he’d bet.)

 

_\--_

 

_**Article 3** _

_The States Parties, specifically the International Body for Enhanced Individuals, as established in Part III, Article 31, reserve the right to determine what constitutes ‘reason and conscience which is assessed to be of- or beyond- human level' on a case-by-case basis, as per protocol laid out in Part III_

_\--_

 

Later, when Ash looks back on the six weeks between Lagos and the Vienna Conference, she’ll remember it as a blur. The snowball that rolled and rolled and rolled down the mountain, getting bigger and bigger until it triggered an avalanche. She’ll remember the exact number of days (six) that she walked out of the SR offices and saw daylight, and be unable to count the times she pulled an all-nighter, sleeping in her chair and using the rolled-up bundle of non-crease clothes she’s started keeping in her bag for this purpose as a pillow (somewhere between seventeen and twenty two).

For now, though, it’s been less than a week since Lagos, and she could just _tell_ that the entirety of the next was going to be taken up by background reading and note-taking on the JCTTF. Still, perhaps this’ll get the _actual_ Avengers Initiative legal department off their asses and actually doing something for a change. Because as far as she - as far as most of the newly-formed SR team - can tell, the hard grafting is being done by themselves, and not by the people contractually obliged to do it. It would be ironic, if they (Tony Stark) didn’t genuinely regard the Initiative legal department as completely and utterly incompetent.

“-Of course, Tony Stark signing the Sokovia Accords contract earlier this week has some arguing that he’s fundamentally set himself _against_ the Joint Counter-Terrorist Task Force. By rushing in and settling with the UN, he’s snubbing NATO - specifically snubbing a US-proposed NATO policy - and essentially thumbing his nose at the government. He might as well have done a flyby past Capitol Hill with a giant flag reading _'Iron Man Doesn't Trust You!'_.”

“Well, it's hardly the first time Stark has snubbed the Ellis Administration.” The CNCB anchor for Politics Live is John Davis, an ageing, centrist stalwart whom both the Republicans and the Dems love and loathe in equal measure. Love because he’s probably the closest to politically neutral that any American news commentator is ever going to get, and loathe for his casual interview style that belies the unrelenting, almost forensic, attention to detail he whips out when his subject (victim?) puts even a _toe_ wrong.

His current conversation partner is one Trisha Ng - a _Foreign Policy_ regular, _Washington Post_ columnist and a long-time favorite of Ash’s (and not only for their shared alma-mater). She’s a former war correspondent, specialising in post-Cold-War Europe, and now lecturing in Western Diplomatic Relations at the London School of Economics. She’d come back to Columbia for a conference early last year, and Ash had gone to her presentation. ‘Captain America in the Age of Diplomacy’, it had been called, the prelude to an article of the same name published in the _Journal of International Affairs_ a few months later. Idly, Ash wonders if Trisha will offer a re-examination of her work in light of the Lagos Catastrophe.

“That is true,” Trisha agrees. “I’m sure no-one needs to be reminded of _that_ deposition footage. I wouldn't necessarily call out Ellis' government in particular, I think that just like every other catastrophe in the last eight years it's an unfortunate coincidence that Tony Stark's reformation occurred within Ellis' term. But  the bottom line here is that Iron Man _is_ and has always been a proponent of accountability: and the UN, perhaps somewhat ironically, will give him the _personal_ autonomy that the US won’t. The Department of Defense has been left empty handed, with both War Machine and the only active member of the Falcon Squadron on the Avengers permanent roster - and the Avengers, as we’re all aware, are underwritten by Tony Stark. It’s not surprising that NATO is seeking enhanced support in the fight against terrorism, but neither is it surprising that Stark has rejected it so firmly. NATO is ultimately a divisive, protectionist military alliance. Nothing about that screams Stark's brand of  _accountability_ to me.”

“But Tony Stark _couldn’t_ have aligned himself with NATO, because up until this morning no-one had any idea that NATO was offering a response to the problem-”

Trisha laughs. “The average Joe maybe, but NATO’s been bickering over the fine print for the JCTTF for months. Come on, John, you know how this works as well as I do. The difference between the Task Force and the Accords is simply that the UN by its very size is forced to be more open about these things. Since the inaugural Convention on Enhanced Individuals back in February 2014 it’s been common knowledge that the UN is seeking some form of international consensus concerning Enhanced regulation, and events since - the fall of SHIELD, Sokovia - only accelerated that process.”

“So you're saying that Stark knew about the JCTTF before this morning, that he has backdoor access to NATO policy meetings?”

It’s not a question so much as a warning, and Ash hears it, hears the resulting pause a microsecond too long to be attributed to satellite lag. “Of course we can’t confirm either way, but considering his history as the major supplier of arms to NATO forces; his involvement, however loosely affiliated to any military objective, on the ground first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq and-”

“None of which is recent, politically speaking.”

“Iron Man’s most recent foray into the Middle East is October 2013 - that’s more recent than The Incident, more recent than the Battle of Greenwich. Not to mention that some of Stark Industries own legal team consulted on the 2014 UN Arms Trade Treaty, and that those same individuals were not only on Tony Stark’s payroll during the negotiations with the US government to exit from contracts terminated back in 2010, but now largely comprise the senior management team at Stark Relief, SI’s sister organisation.”

What Ash knows, and Trish knows, and John Davis might know, is that those lawyers on the senior management team at Stark Relief are almost single-handedly responsible for the invitation to Sokovia by NATO concerning accession to the Washington Treaty. The twelve percent of the credit for that feat which can’t be attributed to them can be given to Tony Stark. Hell yeah, Tony Stark has access to NATO policy meetings.

It’s just not through the _back_ door.

 

\--

 

**_Article 4_ **

_For the purposes of the present Convention, where applicable,_

  1. _the term ‘Enhanced Individuals’ may be used to describe the collective groups defined in Articles 1 and 2_
  2. _the term 'Sapient Beings' may be used to describe a collective group including more than one of the following: Baseline Humans, Enhanced Individuals, and alien beings, biological and non-biological constructs possessed of sentience but yet to be classified by the International Body for Enhanced Individuals_



 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop, hi, I’m back. After a… ten month hiatus? Sorry guys.  
> To be honest, post Infinity War (and Black Panther, and Ant-Man and the Wasp) to continue to update an Accords-centric fic seemed kind of moot. But, actually, I’ve decided that I’m still pretty pissed about the way CW played out, and that I’m also pissed (though utterly unsurprised) about the way that the Accords were written off so easily. Lol nope. Doesn’t work like that.  
> For those few people who’ve been following the meta in ‘the Sokovia Accords’, the other work in this series, you’ll know that I’ve been sporadically working on the document itself, my thought processes and the meta surrounding it. But I wanted to expand on this a little more, although if I’m honest I’m still not entirely sure where I’m going with it. 
> 
> Anywho, in terms of justifying my choices, the biggest decision I made in this chapter was making the JCTTF a NATO-affiliated organisation. It seemed like the most obvious route to me, considering that the CIA, as well as local law-enforcement in both Germany and Romania were involved. This also provides a good explanation for Everett Ross's command in Berlin, Bucky Barnes' extradition agreement, and also how Team Cap ended up in the RAFT. As I've touched on in the comments, if not in the meta for the previous chapter, the UN's legal boundaries (technically) stops with the sovereign state. It holds states to account, not individuals, and as such I really couldn't begin to work out how it had compelled the CIA, among others, to do its bidding.  
> My current headcanon has it that the RAFT is a classified American-owned facility for NATO's use, probably in American waters somewhere a reasonable helicopter ride from Norfolk, VA, which is home to NATO's Allied Command Transformation. SHIELD had some kind of contract drawn up which allowed for its use of the facility (considering how fundamentally American SHIELD was, for a supposedly extra-governmental organisation, some kind of unofficial collaboration with NATO is likely) which probably would never see the inside of a courtroom if it was broken, but was held to anyway. More on this if/when I address the SHIELD file dump in detail.  
> I need to flesh my RAFT headcanon out more - would it then be feasible for the RAFT to be shunted into various member-states territory as and when needed? Or would enough stealth tech simply mean it never had to move? What are the ramifications of it being discovered in US waters? Bearing in mind the existence of Guantanamo Bay and the failure of the US to ratify the Rome Statute. 
> 
> The assumption that the JCTTF is NATO also creates some nice political tension, and highlights the issue of agendas that Steve brings up. NATO is, as my fictional journalist Trish Ng says, 'a divisive, protectionist military alliance'. The Russians (and to a lesser extent the Chinese) won't be happy that the US is so blatantly treading on the UN's toes re. Enhanced recruitment. I'm also assuming that we're in the ratification stage of the Accords - so while all the members of the Security Council have agreed to the Accords in principle by signing them, they haven't yet ratified them into law. Meaning that the whole thing could still go to shit if the signatories split down the old party lines of East-West relations. By my count there are seven NATO or Major non-NATO Allies on the 2016 UN Security Council if one counts Ukraine - but then I still need to take into account the stance of the African Union which accounts for three members (Egypt, an MnNA, Angola and Senegal) and also Egypt's position as representative of the Arab League.  
> Would a hawkish administration desperate for an enhanced heavyweight (or a group of them) manipulate this situation for their own ends? I would say so.  
> Would one newly-sworn-in Secretary of State purposefully bias the Avengers against a UN treaty in order to push them into the waiting arms of NATO (and consequently the US government)?  
> I wouldn't bet against it.
> 
> (Tl;dr, my conspiracy theory is that Thaddeus Ross’ sole intention was to make sure as many Avengers as possible didn’t sign the Accords.)
> 
> As ever, if you have any opinions, theories, questions, etc please please please comment. I love reading them, even when (especially when?) people have different opinions to my own! The majority of the thought process behind this chapter, and the wording of the Accords so far, has mostly come from discussion and debate in the comments.  
> Also, is it too jarring to have the individual articles separated out and in-between the POVs? If so, how better can I set it out?
> 
> EDIT: replaced 'sentient' with 'sapient', thanks to Deadpan29 for the heads up re. definitions!!


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